(Excitebiker)
(Tom Nook)
(Off the Hook) (Chorus Kids)
(Lyn)
(
/
)
(Knuckles) (Arle)
(Chun-Li) (Jill Valentine)
New: King K. Rool, Ice Climbers, Charizard, Ike, Sephiroth
Supplemental veterans are the priority this time, trying to take into account both individual significance and gameplay variety. Ice Climbers are not exactly the most important characters longterm, but their gameplay is entirely unique and quite foundational. I almost had Rosalina & Luma here instead, but since I'm giving vets back to a number of other series already I felt like I could wait a bit longer with Mario. After all, Yoshi and Wario have different series emblems but for all intents and purposes are still representing that universe of characters.
And by some stretch, so is K. Rool. He's one of my favorite Ultimate newcomers and has tools unlike any other heavyweight. He's a clear standout fan-favorite and adds another rival to the core cast. Same can be said about Ike, demonstrably the most popular character in his series and even though we have a couple others right now, the "big sword guy" title belongs to him. With that, once I add Marth back, I may be satisfied with where Fire Emblem is.
Charizard is back. Truth be told, I actually don't care that much about Charizard - he's not a very interesting fighter on his own. But it'd be weird to add Squirtle and Ivysaur first, who are far more compelling and add more to this lineup - and I intend to rebuild Pokemon Trainer. Would have felt a bit guilty if I treated all three as one character, although I was close to doing so.
Want to lay off third parties a bit and prioritize some of the more notable first parties missing right now, but I want to be fair to Sephiroth and re-instate the first "second unique rep" from a third party. I also just love his design philosophy, and how he is such a convincing "boss" character. Now Sonic, Street Fighter and Final Fantasy have secondary fighters - I think that's probably as far as I'm gonna go, the rest will probably be from unrepresented third party series unless I change my mind. Sounds like we have quite a bit of time left so we'll see.